Chapter Text
Bofur is having a very bad day.
What’s worse is that since Thorin stopped drinking, there’s not even beer in the fridge to steal in an effort to remedy his very bad day. Bofur is doomed to sit on the couch, drinking a fucking root beer and wishing it was real beer, staring at his beat-up Docs where they’re crossed and propped up on the table, trying in vain to work up the energy to apply for more jobs.
He’s honestly not sure why he bothers, though. Bofur might be the Bermuda Triangle of job applications.
Ever since he got quite suddenly fired from his job at Rasputin’s for (perhaps a bit rudely) pointing out that they were grossly overpricing their used records, every job application he sends out into the ether he never hears about again. He’s always perfectly qualified for the jobs themselves, and Bilbo helped him tidy up his cover letters, but nothing seems to work. He isn’t even receiving declinations, it’s like he never sent them in the first place. He might as well be chucking them into the Marina. Or else he’s cursed, and someone over at Rasputin’s has a tiny voodoo doll with a ushanka on it that they’re manipulating towards failure after failure.
He presses the neck of his root beer bottle to his lips and stares at his laptop willfully. He’s gotten as far as imagining the process of opening it and checking his (probably very empty) inbox when he hears Bilbo and Thorin come down the stairs and into the kitchen.
Bofur grits his teeth, heart leaping in combined anxiety and irritation. The entire reason he’s in the living room where it’s infernally hot this time of day is because, as of late, his room has become uninhabitable unless Bilbo is in class. Or unless he wants to hear Thorin groaning and Bilbo gasping and the resounding slap of skin against skin for literal hours all goddamned night. Sometimes, if his music is not turned up loud enough or if there’s a moment of silence between songs, he’ll even hear wet, vile, snick snick sounds, and he really does not want to know what the fuck that is. It’s not like he’s actively listening and wondering, anyway. They’re just so fucking loud, and Bilbo’s room is right fucking there, and there’s only so much time Bofur can wear his earbuds before they sort of start to hurt, so. The living room is his only reprieve from being endlessly accosted by the soundtrack of his friends banging through every moment of their honeymoon phase.
He’s totally happy for them. He really is. Truly. But he also wishes he didn’t know so much about their bedroom habits and preferences. It’s not at all a helpful backdrop to the already very disheartening process of chucking resumes into the Marina.
Bofur tries to drown out the sounds from the kitchen, but like all things he’d rather forget, he’s inexplicably drawn to it, until it’s all he can hear. They’re currently talking in low voices as they rummage around in the fridge and put something in the toaster, laughing in short, gleeful bursts when they’re not smooching. And Bofur knows they’re smooching because he can hear them smooching. It’s a gross, repeated smacking that plateaus into something more muted and slick-sounding and breathy, and then he hears Bilbo choke out a muffled groan, and suddenly he’s terrified they’re gonna start fucking in the kitchen. Right against the counter in the middle of the fucking day while he sits, helplessly trapped in the living room without the option of sneaking back upstairs because he’d himself away. So, in a panic, he finally finds the motivation required to open his laptop and put on some music. He selects Rainbow’s “Makin’ Love,” because he is not above pettiness at this point.
Thankfully, the kissing sounds stop and the talking resumes. He sighs and begrudgingly opens up the craigslist gigs section to see if it’s been updated since the last time he checked (which was, very sadly, only this morning). He’s deep in the agonizing throes of considering whether or not he’s desperate enough to apply at Taco Bell when the front door suddenly slams open. Dwalin shoulders his way in, Whole Foods apron still slung over his thick neck, shaved head shining in a sheen of sweat because it’s been an unnaturally hot September thus far. “Oi,” he says, saluting Bofur where he’s sitting on the couch, frowning at his computer. “You look terrible. Are you still in your PJs?!
“Fuck you,” Bofur mumbles as good-naturedly as possible, turning down his music and gazing at his stained boxers with dismay. Dwalin is right, of course. He hasn’t changed since he got up this morning. He’s a far cry from his usual, cheerful, easygoing self, he’s not even high because he’s broke and can’t justify spending his grocery money on weed. It’s depressing.
Dwalin strides over, patting Bofur’s cheek with a rough, tattooed hand. “C’mon, smile! I have something to cheer you up. Sick of seeing you so fucking miserable.” He then bends to unlace his boots, kicking them off into a messy pile beside the door before unzipping his backpack and bringing out a six-pack of some fancy-looking IPA with a fish on the can. He brandishes it with a grin, and in spite of himself, Bofur grins back.
“A fucking godsend, you are,” he says, taking the can Dwalin offers him. “Thanks.”
He cracks it open and gratefully chugs a few swallows, wincing at how warm and bitter it is. Bofur generally hates IPAs; they don’t go down smoothly, and if they’re from Whole Foods, they’re too expensive, but he’s not in a position to be refusing beer at this point, so he keeps drinking, choking it down with a shudder but without complaint. “The beer isn’t even the best bit,” Dwalin says, cracking open his own can and knocking it into Bofur’s so that they both spill a bit of foam on the worn-out carpet. “The beer is to celebrate.”
“What are we celebrating?” Bofur asks. He does not have very much in his life to celebrate right now, but maybe Rhapsody of Fire got back together or something. He wouldn’t know because he’s spending all the time he would spend on metal forums applying to jobs that never get back to him.
“I got you a job,” Dwalin says after draining half his can in a single impressive chug.
Bofur immediately chokes, sputtering until his eyes stream, beer foam in his mustache. “You what?” he coughs. “A job application or the whole fucking job?”
“The job itself, if you want it. S’not what you’re looking for, exactly, but hey, it’s money right?” Dwalin offers, shrugging. “I said you were interested and can start right away.”
Bofur grins, kicking Dwalin in the shin appreciatively. “Hell, as long as it’s not Taco Bell, it’s golden. I was literally minutes away from selling my soul to the fast food gods. Not my proudest moment. But I’ll take Whole Foods over Taco Bell.”
Dwalin snorts into his beer. “Not Taco bell or Whole Foods. It’s more of a gig thing. I have a coworker who needs some help around the house, a real nice guy, single dad.”
“What sort of help around the house?” Bofur asks, doubt creeping up his throat, threatening to strangle him. “I’m not, like, a handyman.”
“Nah, I think it’s mostly driving. He’s always getting into it with our supervisor, so he works the shittiest hours. He has kids in school and is basically looking for someone with a car who’s down to drop ’em off, pick ’em up, get groceries, throw some dinner in the microwave. That sort of shit.”
“Oh, so like a Mary Poppins job?” Bofur asks, looking down at his boxers again and wondering if he’s really nanny material, or if some college student with pigtails and a BMW would be better suited to the job. “You think he’ll actually hire me?”
“On my recommendation? Aye,” Dwalin says, taking the apron off his neck and tossing it onto Bofur’s face. “You owe me.”
Bofur bats the apron off just in time to see Bilbo pop his head into the living room. He’s wearing an old Rammstein shirt of Thorin’s and, as usual, has so many hickeys on his neck that they’ve stopped looking like individual mouth-shaped marks and morphed into a wide swath of bruised skin. Bofur didn’t even know adults gave each other hickeys until Bilbo and Thorin, but apparently they do. He thought it was funny for about two days, but now it just makes him bristle with all sorts of feelings he does not care to examine. “Bofur got a job?” Bilbo asks. “Congratulations! I know you’ve been looking.”
“I don’t have it yet, don’t jinx it, ” Bofur snaps, wadding Dwalin’s apron up and throwing it across the room in Bilbo’s general direction. It sails to the ground in front of Thorin, who has just wandered in because he apparently cannot be apart from Bilbo for more than three seconds. Bofur notes that he is not wearing any shirt and has scratch marks all over his back. He rips his gaze away, cheeks hot. There are so many things he does not want to know and knows all the same. It’s unsettling.
“What sort of job?” Thorin asks, looping his arms around Bilbo and pulling him close, burying his face into his hair.
Nannying job sounds like a joke and chauffeur rhymes with his name so it sounds like even more of a joke, so Bofur settles on “personal assistant,” which he thinks sounds rather professional. “For some single dad Dwalin works with at Whole Foods.”
He should not have put so much effort into finding the perfect word to describe the job, though, because Bilbo and Thorin are not even listening. Thorin is sticking his tongue out, and Bilbo is rolling up onto the balls of his feet to lick it, like tongue-licking is a thing people just fucking do in the middle of the living room in front of their poor, innocent housemates. Then they’re making out again, and Bofur is sucking down the rest of his beer so that he can crumple the can up and throw it at them, too, since he is fresh out of harmless things to throw and doesn’t want to hurt his laptop. “Jesus Christ,” he gripes, turning back to Dwalin after failing to polish off so much IPA in a single gulp. “When can I start?” By which he means when can I get the fuck out of here?
Dwalin shrugs, then burps, then gets his phone out of his back pocket. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him yourself. Here’s his number.”
And so, after a few awkward texts with a stranger, Bofur has a job interview of sorts set up.
—-
They agree to meet for coffee at a spot near College and Ashby, which is far too bougie for Bofur’s tastes, but he supposes he shouldn’t expect anything different from someone who works at Whole Foods. He cleans up as best he can for the meeting, borrowing a solid black t-shirt from Ori since he doesn’t own anything that isn’t riddled in holes or bleach stains and opting for a virgin denim jacket that he hasn’t modified yet instead of his usual patch-and-pin-encrusted leather. He even considers forgoing his hat, but when he takes it off and looks at himself in the mirror, it’s like he’s an entirely different person, so he decides he should look like himself if he’s going to give a good and honest impression. He combs his hair and plunks his hat back on before borrowing Fili’s bike and pedaling down the hill.
He’s nervous when he arrives, worried he’ll come off too desperate or too unprofessional or perhaps just too unkempt despite his best efforts to actually look like the man in his mid-thirties he actually is instead of a perpetual teenager in more bands than he can keep track of. However, the nerves immediately get worse the second he sees Bard, who he instantly recognizes as the person he’s looking for because he’s so obviously a Whole Foods employee that it’s almost comical. Or, it would be comical if he also didn’t look like a fucking Urban Outfitters model.
Bard is very good-looking for a dad. Like, irritatingly good-looking. He looks like the guy from Pirates of the Caribbean’s slightly older stunt double or something. Not Johnny Depp, the other one. He has shiny brown hair pulled into a strategically messy bun, a chiseled jaw, and high, almost delicate cheekbones. Even before he pushes his aviators up into his hair to reveal his entire face, Bofur already feels threatened by his looks. He’s the exact sort of hot Bofur resents in men because for the whole of his life, he’s never been able to tell if it’s rooted in jealousy or some half-strangled-to-silence yet not-quite-repressed attraction.
Seeing Bard’s eyes sort of helps. They are the most tired eyes Bofur has ever seen on another person, and his smile is equally exhausted, like the sheer effort of pulling the corners of his mouth up physically pains him. “Bofur?” he asks, offering his hand and blinking in the sunlight.
Bofur takes it to heartily shake, trying his damnedest to not let himself be derailed by his potential future employer’s unexpected hotness. He can work for a hot dad, it’s fine. This changes nothing. “At your service,” he says, grinning before he sits down. “Bard, right?”
“Mmmhmm,” Bard says, curling his big, nice-looking palm around his tiny white espresso cup. Bofur stares. He could be a hand model for, like, a line of rugged, manly-looking leather watches or something. It’s only when he glances back up at his face that recognition seems to dawn on him, like the memories from a half-faded dream.
“Wait,” he says, narrowing his eyes at Bard’s stupidly handsome and very, very tired-looking face. “Do I know you?”
“Do you shop at the Lake Merritt Whole Foods?” Bard asks.
“Hell, no, we can’t afford Whole Foods...we can barely afford Berkeley Bowl,” he blurts, realizing as soon as it leaves his mouth that he literally forgot this was a job interview he was supposed to be making a good impression during.
His cheeks color, and he sits back awkwardly, but before he can scramble to find a defense, Bard laughs, shaking his head. “I couldn’t afford it without the employee discount either.”
The laughter helps dissipate the tightness in Bofur’s chest a little, and he remembers there was a reason he wore his hat. He’s trying to be his authentic, real-person self, not his (apparently very easily ignorable and not at all hirable) resume self. He’s trying to be an honest-to-god human. “You look familiar is all,” he forces himself to say, crossing his arms on the table and leaning closer. “Has Dwalin ever brought you around the House of Durin before? Maybe to a show? A party? Swear I’ve seen your face.” Your pretty-boy face is what he almost says, but he manages to stop in time, biting his cheek and reminding himself that just because he’s being authentic doesn’t mean he has to willfully botch his job interview. He’s got to find a balance. He’s just never been particularly good at that.
Bard purses his lips and cocks up an eyebrow. “No, but I did have to kick Dwalin and some friends out of the White Horse over the summer…I work some bartending shifts there during the week.”
Bofur immediately flushes. He only really half-remembers that night, and what does come back to him is in nonsense flashes of color and music and the taste of cheap vodka sodas. He did order plenty of them, though, so it’s likely he has seen this man. “That’s it, then. Damn, it’s coming back to me now.”
“To me, too,” Bard offers, gesturing to his head. “I recognize the hat.”
Bofur’s heart sinks. If present him doesn’t ruin the interview, then leave it to past him to do the job. “What a fabulous way to recall the man you’re supposed to entrust with driving your kids around,” Bofur says, making a face. “I promise, I’m usually more responsible.”
“You were fine,” Bard says easily, waving one of his watch-model hands through the air before tucking it behind his head. Bofur ends up staring at his armpit, at the soft brown hair poking out through the sleeve of his t-shirt. “You weren’t starting shit, you were just singing, I think.”
Bofur thinks back, trying to arrange his very vague recollections of that bar as his gaze sweeps up to the too-bright sky. “Aye, sounds about right. M’always singing,” he concedes.
“Good,” Bard says with a curt nod. “Because singing is a big thing in my house. My youngest, Tilda, wants to be on Broadway. Her current dream role is Eponine from Les Mis, so prepare to hear a six-year-old’s rendition of “On My Own” a hundred times a day,” he explains apologetically, smile both fond and self-deprecating, like he loves his daughter, but he also understands that no man in his right mind would willingly expose himself to the sort of job that requires enduring children singing musical numbers ad nauseam. Bofur, however, is just thrilled they’re talking like he already has the job. It’s a massive relief to have Bard try to sell him on the gig instead of having to sell himself.
“Well,” he says grinning. “Lucky for Tilda, I can accompany her on a variety of instruments and coach her on her Tony speech.”
Bard laughs, sounding just as relieved as Bofur feels. “Great,” he says. “She’ll love that.”
“And you said your youngest…you have more? A whole herd?”
Bofur shakes his head, still smiling his weary smile. “No, just three. There’s Tilda, the baby, then Bain in the middle. He’s ten and plays soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring and is always trying to set off his model rockets in the backyard, even though he’s not allowed to. We don’t have a gaming console, and he will most definitely try to get you to call CPS to report this travesty. But as far as ten-year-old boys go, he’s a good one. Or I try to make sure he is. My oldest, Sigrid, is thirteen. She’s quiet, responsible, likes to read, very good in school. She’s getting to that age where I keep expecting her to turn into a teenager and start hating me, but so far, it hasn’t happened yet,” he sighs, spinning his little white mug on its little white saucer, gazing down the foamy brown patina crusted inside. “She has too much responsibility, though, and ends up parenting the others just as much as I do. Cooks too many meals, cleans up. Which is why I need someone else around to help. She should be a kid for as long as possible.”
Bofur, who thought he might have to lie and sugarcoat or at least beg to get this job, finds himself peculiarly moved to sincerity. “They sound like good kids. But mostly you sound like a good dad.”
Bard glances up, brown eyes flashing with a sudden warmth that reveals itself even from behind so many shades of exhaustion. “I try,” he says. “But it’s hard with work. I’m stressed all the time, and I’m not home as much as I should be. Bain’s grades have been slipping this semester, and Sigrid is stuck helping him with his homework, but he needs a real tutor. And that got me thinking—there are lots of things that need to be done that I keep putting off. The fence is falling down, the cupboards are a mess, the porch could fall apart any minute. I haven’t deep-cleaned in a year. I suppose what I’m looking for isn’t just someone who can drive the kids to and from school and help Bain with homework, but someone who might be able to get things done around the house during the day, too.” He almost winces as he says it, as if he’s either skeptical that Bofur is capable or worried it’s too much to ask. “I know it’s a lot,” he adds, clarifying the matter.
Bofur fights the urge to throw himself prostrate at this man’s feet and shower him with overeager gratitude. Instead, he clears his throat. “Cleaning and driving is fine. And I’m no contractor, but my cousin was and I know my way around a hammer and nail alright. It’s been awhile since I did arithmetic, but I think I can remember the basics…my times tables and Please Explode My Dear Aunt Sally and the like.”
Bard raises his eyebrows. “Explode? When I learned that bit, it was excuse. Or maybe I just had a boring teacher.”
“Yeah, same, but my brother Bomber taught me explode instead, and I certainly thought it was funnier that way, so I remembered it better, I guess,” Bofur explains, feeling stupid until he realizes it’s exactly how a ten-year-old boy would think. Maybe he’s more cut out for this job than he realizes.
“Bain will love that,” Bard says, smiling so that the crow’s feet flanking his dark eyes crinkle up. It’s a genuine smile, and Bofur’s stomach drops as he studies it. “You’re hired. You can come over Saturday afternoon for my half-day shift and meet them.”
And Bofur is so fucking happy, he grins the whole bike ride back to the House of Durin, and that, too, is a genuine smile.
—-
At first, Bard’s kids are shy. Tilda hides behind her father, peering around his legs to narrow her eyes at Bofur with equal amounts intrigue and suspicion written across her face. Bain sulks on the couch, glowering and asking repeatedly when he can go out into the yard. Sigrid immediately disappears into her room after very politely and formally introducing herself with a handshake. “Don’t take it personally,” Bard says over his shoulder as he leads Bofur through the house, showing him around. “Trust me, in a day, they’ll be climbing all over you and braiding your hair and riding you like a pony.”
“I wont!” Sigrid yells from where she must be eavesdropping. A door slams.
Bard locks eyes with Bofur, the corner of his mouth quirked up into a smile. “Correction, Sigird will not. My bad.”
Every time they make sustained eye contact in this fashion, Bofur’s stomach twists up. It’s something about the darkness of Bard’s gaze, not just in it but shadowed beneath it, drawn into the weary crinkled lines. Bofur is always surprised there’s a twinkle mired deep in so much black, and it catches him off guard. Makes him feel like he’s missed a step and tripped. It’s sort of annoying.
Bard gives him a tour of the house, which is a modest, cluttered Craftsman on the border of South Berkeley and North Oakland. The house, like Bard himself, almost appears to be buckling under the weight of exhaustion: the window trim scuffed, the raised bed planters framing the cracked cement walkway to the door split and sagging. It has a vastly overgrown front yard and a porch with a broken swing, and although everything feels choked with deflated soccer balls and drying weeds, and Bofur has accidentally kicked so many toys half-hidden in the dandelion greens that he’s practically lost count, there’s something that feels very idyllic about the whole place, even though there’s technically no white picket fence. It’s the sort of storybook, suburban home Bofur often bikes past and imagines happy people living inside of. Normal people, simple people, the sorts who can hold decent jobs and get married and have kids without fighting tooth and nail to get there. The sort who play life like a video game, unlocking each new achievement and advancing to the next level, their path direct and uncomplicated.
Bofur spent much of his adolescence knowing he could never have a life like this, a house like this, and subsequently tricking himself into believing he didn’t want them in the first place so that his inevitable lackluster future wouldn’t be so disappointing. He did a pretty good job, he thinks. He has his bands, his guitars, his friends, his found family, his room at the House of Durin. He doesn’t need a fucking porch swing. And yet, the quiet chaos of Bard’s house still strikes up a weird, ancient, half-buried feeling inside him. Something like longing. Something like inadequacy. So as he follows Bard around, learning which kitchen cupboard he keeps his baking sheets in and how to set the thermostat when it gets too cold at night and where he hides his first-aid kit so Tilda doesn't steal all the band-aids for her hospital dramas, Bofur tries to silence the lick of feeling in his gut, to drown it in denial, instead. His life has never been about getting what he wants, it’s always been about feeling satisfied with what he has. He mustn’t let things remind him that he’s nearly thirty-nine because thirty-nine shouldn’t mean anything.
“Here are the emergency numbers,” Bard says, ripping a sheet out of a yellow legal pad and scrawling across it in a loose, spidery hand. “My mother in law, who lives in Marin. Their pediatrician. My neighbor, who has a key, in case you ever get locked out.”
“I won’t,” Bofur says with far more assurance than he feels. “Your kids are in good, safe hands, I promise.”
And then Bard shoots him a weary smile, claps a palm down onto his shoulder gratefully, and leaves out the front door with his Whole Foods apron hanging over his shoulder like a cape.
As soon as he’s alone with the kids, Bofur gets ambushed. First, someone hits him in the back with a Nerf gun. He whips around to find Tilda standing there with her face a mask of mock innocence, just as Bain pops his head out from under the coffee table and immediately chucks what looks like a Beanie Baby right in Bofur’s face.
Luckily, he has excellent reflexes and hand-eye coordination from the few years he spent playing drums for a thrash band, and catches it single-fistedly. “Gotcha,” he says, chucking it back. “Your dad said you were good kids...was he lying, or do you have him fooled?”
Bain does not seem to register the question, though, he’s too busy staring at Bofur through the waves of untidy dark hair that have fallen in his eyes. “Why is your mustache like that?” he asks, mouth twisting to the side as he squirms on the carpet.
Bofur sits down on the couch, preparing to field questions. “Because I like something to be fancy,” he explains, smoothing his fingers over the long, waxed tips with flourish. “Since the rest of me isn’t.”
Tilda plops down next to him, keeping a cautious distance and still clutching the Nerf gun as she examines the rest of him, perhaps testing for and preparing to appraise the status of his observable fanciness. Then she wrinkles her nose in disapproval. “Why do you have a hat?”
“Why do you have a tutu?” he shoots back at her, pointing as the crisp gather of neon pink tule around her hips. In addition to the tutu, she’s also wearing a shirt with a glittery horse on it, lady bug print leggings, and bright green galoshes. There are so many colors and patterns that it sort of makes Bofur dizzy, at the same time he’s impressed.
She dodges the question. “Are you bald under there?”
“Yes,” he lies, nodding. “You got me, very sad tale. I went to the Oakland Zoo and walked past the giraffe enclosure, and a giraffe, tall as your house, probably nearsighted, given what happened, saw my luscious locks and mistook them for hay. Bent down and took a giant fucking bite right off the top of my head. Now I wear a hat so I don’t get sunburnt.”
The thrill of the story itself is clearly lost to the spectacular excitement of the word fuck. “You just said the F word!” Bain exclaims, voice a mix of awe, horror, and mild respect. Tilda is just gasping dramatically, eyes wide and mouth open into a tight O like this moment is the Broadway audition she’s been waiting for. Bofur tries not to panic, considering he has just won their favor and potentially lost their father’s in one fell swoop.
“Goddam—darn it, I did, didn’t I?” he says, heart rabbiting in his chest as he puts his hands on his hips. He’s not good at this. He hasn’t had to moderate his language his entire life, really. Not since he moved out with Bomber at sixteen and could curse as much as he liked. “Listen,” he says, thinking quickly, scrambling to come up with a plan. He leans conspiratorially down to where Bain is still lying on the floor as Tilda scrambles closer to hear. “How about we make a deal. You can each say that word once, quietly, here to me, and I won’t tell anyone, as long as you two don’t tell your dad and sister I accidentally said it.”
Bain thinks about it, eyes narrowing. “Two times,” he says, holding up a peace sign.
“You drive a hard bargain,” Bofur sighs before making a fist around Bain’s fingers and shaking his hand. “But I accept the terms.”
Tilda giggles and bounces on the couch, clearly about to embark on the most exciting moment of her six-year-old life. “Sigrid’s going to be so jealous.”
“No, she’s not, because she won’t know,” Bofur explains, clapping his hands together, eager to get this over with so that he can proceed to actually being a good babysitter after his minor transgression. “Okay, kids, chop chop, let’s hear it.”
“Fuck,” Bain says in a hush before he grins. “Fuck.”
It sends Tilda into a bout of hysterics, and she hurls herself backward onto the couch cushions beside Bofur, cackling breathlessly for a moment before containing herself enough to quietly whisper a muted, “fff-k.”
“C’mon, Tilda, that was weak,” Bain announces crawling out from under the table and depositing himself on Bofur’s other side. “You missed the ’u’ sound. It’s F—”
“Hey! Two times, buddy,” Bofur snaps, elbowing him in the side. “The free pass is over.”
Bain pouts as Tilda rights herself, inhaling like she’s about to jump into a pool.
“Good,” Bofur says, mimicking her, lifting his chest and sitting up tall. “Use the diaphragm, make it count.”
She takes a few big, deep breaths before emphatically uttering, “Fuck.” Then she flings herself into the cushions again, dissolving into giggles, cheeks pink with delight.
Bofur shoots her a thumbs up. “Much better. Okay, the deed is done, we are now bound in a secret blood-pact of secret secrecy. Everybody put your hand into the circle like we just scored a goal at a soccer game.”
They do, both wheezing with barely restrained laughter. “F-bomb bond, dissolved,” Bofur says, wiggling his fingers. “Poof! We can never talk about it ever again.”
“But Daddy says it sometimes, too, you know,” Tilda says sagely, now obviously a connoisseur of cursing.
“Says what? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bofur declares, shrugging, and they both seem to think that’s positively hilarious and start rolling around cracking up again. Bofur sincerely hopes he hasn’t given Bard’s kids psychological damage already. That would not be a particularly good thing to do on his first day.
Luckily, the sanctioned secret cursing session seems to earn him the dual privileges of both respect and coolness. Tilda and Bain not only seem to like him, they listen to him. It’s a huge relief. He spends the rest of the afternoon being actively fought over. Bain keeps trying to drag him out into the yard to show him the scorch mark left from one of his rockets, while Tilda is taking every opportunity to tug him into her room so that they can do “spells,” whatever that means. He manages to appease them both at the same time by offering to make a “potion” from whatever materials Tilda collects, an endeavor Bain enthusiastically supports as long as Bofur promises to drink a little bit of it. Several hours are spent mixing their findings into a horrible soup. So far it has salt, ketchup, barbecue sauce, pepper, ranch, regular mustard, spicy mustard, non-dairy creamer, soy sauce, hot sauce, relish, mayonnaise, and a splash of orange juice. Tilda brings in a fist full of dry grass from the yard and a pail full of hose water, and together, they mix it all up.
“You’re gonna barf,” Bain says gleefully.
“I won’t,” Bofur scoffs, though he is not at all certain. “Tilda is going to magic it into something delicious, aren’t you?”
“Nope!” she says, promising nothing as he lifts her up with his hands under her armpits so that she can wave her wand (pencil) over the concoction, which is brown save for the bits of yellow-green from the yard swimming in it. After she says some nonsense words, Bofur sets her down and rubs his palms together before ceremoniously taking a shot glass from Bain.
“Alright,” he says, filling it up. “If I die, the emergency contacts are on the fridge. You can use my cellphone,” he says, sniffing the glass. It smells tangy and salty. Honestly, not too bad. He used to do shit like this in grade school to impress girls, and back then, there were usually, like, bits of tuna and Cheetos swimming in it, so. Things could be worse.
He throws back the shot while the kids watch, rapt with disgust and delight and more disgust. Bain is already eyeing his phone, likely hoping for an untimely death so that he can inherit it.
But of course, Bofur is fine. It’s awful, but it’s tolerable. As one might expect as it tastes exactly like all the things that are in it. He picks a bit of grass off his tongue. “Truly outstanding. Superb. Perfectly balanced. Compliments to the chefs,” he says, bowing to each kid over and over again as they giggle and shriek and dance around the kitchen and generally act as if he’s just completed some truly amazing feat of artistry or perhaps a trick on a trapeze. He’s thrilled they’re so easy to entertain. He takes another shot of the potion, shuddering, and the crowd goes wild.
They must be making so much noise that Sigrid cannot read her book in peace because this is the moment she storms out into the kitchen. “What are you guys doing?” she snaps, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at her brother in particular, who has spilled out onto the floor he is laughing so hard.
“Making potions,” Bofur explains, gesturing to the bowl and its dreadful contents with a shrug. “Want some? I’m also about to make some dinner. You can stick around if you want.”
She glares at him. “Can you even cook?” she spits out.
It’s lame, but the venom in her voice actually sort of hurts. Bofur has been afraid of thirteen-year-old girls his whole life, probably, but he forces himself not to recoil. “I can, believe it or not. And at the very least, I can put instant dinners from the freezer into the oven.”
“So can I,” she says without looking up. She’s sat down at the kitchen table and opened up her book, staring at it even though Bofur is fairly sure she’s not actually reading. He frowns, realizing that Sigrid might be a hard nut to crack.
“Tilda, Bain,” he says, picking up the bowl, potion sloshing menacingly inside. “Take this out to the yard and feed a plant with it, will you? Unless you would like a cup each.”
They both shriek in disgust and scamper off as predicted. He washes his hands, studying Sigrid’s frown, her dirty blonde hair. He didn’t think she looked at all like Bard when he first saw her, but when she frowns, he sees it a bit. The sadness. “What’re you reading?” he asks as he returns all the sauces and spices where he found them, exchanging them for dinner ingredients. Bilbo once gave him a recipe for a simple, one-pot chili, and he’s pretty sure Bard has everything to make it. “Looks like fantasy.”
“It is,” she says flatly, without looking up. Bofur lets her be, opening cans and chopping onions, listening to the distant, heated but safe-sounding argument Bain and Tilda are having in the backyard as to which plant most deserves the potion. He’s about to search the freezer for frozen corn when Sigrid startles him out of his silence, asking, “How do you know my dad?”
Bofur is not sure why, but Bard’s mere mention heats up his cheeks. He tightens his grip on the freezer door, staring at a crayon horse drawing tacked up with magnets until his heart slows a bit. “Your dad and my housemate work together,” he explains, choosing to omit the part about the bar, as it’s neither appropriate nor relevant. “He passed on my information, and voila, I’m your babysitter now.”
She shuts her book and crosses her legs, shooting Bofur a positively withering look as he gives up on the corn. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I’m your personal chef now,” he corrects, holding up a clove of garlic to demonstrate. Then he turns on a burner and dumps the diced onion into a pot, eyes watering because he is weak and onions hurt and thirteen-year-old girls are scary and it only just occurred to him that lots of kids hate onions so maybe they’ll hate Bilbo’s chili recipe, too.
Sigrid watches him, mouth pursed into a flat, judgmental line until it falters, and she turns back to her book. “Dad said you already had a job playing music.”
Bofur’s throat tightens at the knowledge that Bard has shared this information about him. “He’s right,” he explains, draining the cans of beans before depositing them one by one into the now sizzling pot of onions. “I play in bands.”
“Are they famous?”
“Not very, but people do show up, and I do get paid. But as you can imagine, it’s not the most regular job. Not like Whole Foods and bartending, where you can go every day.”
“So you weren’t making enough money?” she asks suspiciously.
“No, I had too much time on my hands. I was, like, I could pick up another hobby…needlecraft, maybe…or underwater basket weaving? Flea circus? They all seemed too impractical in the end, though, so I decided to go the way of the dreaded day job. So far, it’s been alright...I mean, I got to drink grass and hot sauce together, so I’m already living it up. “
Finally, fucking finally, Sigrid laughs. It’s a small laugh but a genuine one, bubbling up out of her in a wordless, stifled snort like she tried to choke it down but couldn’t manage. Bofur lets out a breath he hardly realized he was holding. “Gotcha,” he says, grinning at her.
She is doing a very poor job of concealing a smile. “I hate onions,” she says then.
“I will make you a portion without,” he concedes.
They share space quietly as the sun goes down, Bofur cooking and Sigrid reading while Tilda and Bain chase each other around in the yard, laughing and shouting about spells and potions and magic.
Bofur is watching muted Ninja Warrior reruns on TV when Bard returns later that night. The sound of the key in the door makes him scramble up, heart leaping in his throat, blood racing like he’s about to get caught doing something wrong. It’s absurd, though, founded in nothing. The kids are all in bed, teeth brushed after a decent, home-cooked meal. No one is injured, nothing is on fire. He did a pretty decent job, he thinks, at his first-ever babysitting gig. Still. Just seeing Bard’s tall, willowy frame backlit by the porch light makes him nervous.
“Hello,” Bard says, voice tired, eyes even more so. It seems like there are new lines about his mouth, and Bofur chews the inside of his cheek as he studies them, willing his own pulse to slow. “I trust you endured no disasters? The house is still standing...I didn’t get any calls from the neighbors.” He hangs up his apron beside his jacket, groans, and cracks his back.
“Aye, no travesties. Your kids are perfect angels.”
Bard snorts. “They’re not, but…they’re not the worst. I’m glad you could handle them.”
“Psh, it was no problem at all,” Bofur says, waving a hand through the air dismissively. “I hope they didn’t learn any new words.”
“Nothing I haven’t said before, I’m sure,” Bard says, carding a hand through his hair to loosen the elastic before reaching out and clapping Bofur on the shoulder and handing him a check. “This is for you. And maybe—maybe we’ll see you around.”
It’s an odd, vague, noncommittal thing to say. And then there’s the way he says it—so curtly, his words clipped like a parakeet’s wings. As Bofur slides the check into his pocket, waves goodbye, and wheels his bike out into the street, he wonders if he’s done something wrong, or if that level of gratitude and hospitality is all he can expect from Bard from here on out. Which is fine, really. It’s not like he expects they’ll become friends. Or even that he’ll keep the job, considering there are likely more qualified people out there in the city, just as desperate for a paycheck as he is.
He tries not to think about it too much. He bikes to the liquor store, buys himself a cheap six-pack, and takes it back to drink alone in the House of Durin. When he wakes up bleary-eyed with a headache, there’s a text from Bard.
you were a big hit. down to come back? I have a proper schedule if you’re genuinely interested in this being a regular thing.
Bofur flops back into his bed upon reading it and grins at the ceiling. Fuck yeah, he texts back. When he hits send, he decides he’s going to have a good day, today.